fit out progress

Just to prove that I have been working, here are some pictures:

I put in the beam and drain structure in the lazarette. I also painted the inside first so I wouldn't have to crawl in to do it. The bottom of the lower deck is also painted (except for the gluing regions). I have used wattyl DTM-985 again as I will in all lockers and the bilge areas. This paint is great. Direct to epoxy, it is primer, undercoat and topcoat in one. If you thin it to 10% of L760 thinners, you can roller it with a long nap roller. You get a slightly rough but incredibly tough surface which is suitable for these areas. It is also a high build paint so it will cover blemishes and glass tape weave, etc

lazarette drain complete

I decided that I want the boat to be stronger so I have incorporated cement! :0

So the bridge deck is on.....

bridge decks glued on

 and I also painted these lockers first for easier access

internal lockers painted

 I realised that I had forgotten to attach the little doubler/supports for the cockpit shelves prior to filleting the bulkhead/hull joins. Francois said that they were not required structurally but just an easy way to support the shelves. Instead, I have supported the shelves with battens

cockpit shelves installed

Now, I am adding the support beams for the helmsman's (i.e. my!) seat before I finish epoxying the side rear buoyancy tanks.

slowly fitting out

once again, I have been very slow and slack in updating my progress. There has been quite a bit of progress since the turnover day although not quite as much as I'd hoped. That's because, it has been summer and I have a very big vegetable garden that is slowly becoming a market garden and also because we've had such good weather that it's been nice to take a break every so often to go down to the cove and have a swim or a fish.

What have I done since turnover?

- clean out all the gobs of epoxy that I didn't clean out while planking

- lightly sand all the planking on the inside and round off the inner edges then fillet the overlaps (I used bote-cote resin but with West 411)

- epoxy coat then attach all floors

- fillet and glass all the floors and bulkheads and transom to the planking. This was a slow and tedious job but one I wanted to get right as these must provide much of the resistance to twist in the boat. I used bote-cote thickened with their glue and fillet powder (which I believe is mostly colloidal silica). I mixed the gunk thickly and applied it after painting the zone to be taped with straight resin. I shaped the fillet with a disc of pine wood. I made a whole pile of these by ripping cheap pine boards into 3-4 mm thick strips then using a hole-saw to cut 30mm discs. I sanded the edges and they worked really well. Then, the advice of Chris Burke, a proper boat builder who works at Denman Marine, was really useful. Chris told me to polish the fillets with my gloved finger dipped in methylated spirits. He also told me to wet out the tape on a flat surface covered with a piece of plastic then put it over the fillet already wet. This was fantastic as it meant no squeegeeing of epoxy on curved surfaces in confined spaces. I just used metal roller with ribs running across ways to roll on the wetted tape and remove air. I then used a heat gun to further remove air from the surface and make the epoxy settle in. I used 420 gsm 45/45o biaxial tape and this conformed to curves really well without needing to have darts or nicks cut into it. After the epoxy went tacky, I rolled on another coat of straight resin using a shaggy roller.

floors in the cuddy

 Sanding all these fillets was a real pain but I'm hoping that the paint that I will use in the bilge and locker areas (which I also used under the waterline on the outside of the hull - Wattyl DTM 985) will be high enough build that it will fill and obscure any of the surface imperfections. And, hey, it's just the bilge and lockers!

I have also laminated the sheer clamp/beam shelf. As I am using swamp gum/mountain ash for this, I found that it was going to be way too stiff and difficult to try and glue in both pieces at once, so I did them separately and this worked well. I used bote-cote high-strength filler for the glue and a huge number of clamps ( I had to borrow some). The sheer is now really nice and smooth with no irregularities at all. I planed off the beam shelf with the deck camber allowed for. Gee this boat is going to be strong! Mine will, according to FV be about 30kg heavier, but it will be a whole lot stronger as the hoop ply I am using is F17 whilst gaboon is F8 (the hoop has many more laminations) and the swamp gum is >F17 while douglas fir ranges from F7 up to F11.

beam shelves in place 

Next, I put the longitudinal bulkheads, that define the flotation chambers, in place. They required several minor adjustments (shaving with a plane) and then I glued and filleted them in place. Vivier didn't say to glass these in, I don't think, but I am doing it anyway.

watertight compartments in place

I have also commenced building the rear lazarette having glued on the side stringers and the cut in and glued the beam that supports the top of the compartment.

stringers and beam in place

centreboard pattern

Right now I'm mostly working on filleting and glassing the floors and bulkheads. This is tedious work but I'm close to done and a post will be forthcoming.
As a small sideproject, I have been making the centreboard pattern for casting. Mike Randall was very generous to send me a full size PDF that he made from the plans of the centreboard. I got this printed and was shocked but also excited to see how big the centreboard will be.
I cut out the paper patterns for the centreboard shape and the foils and then marked these onto MDF. After cutting and planing these pieces to size, I glued them together and glued in slabs of polystyrene foam.
The fun bit came next. I borrowed a hot wire cutter from a friend who makes model aircraft wings using this same method. This was a 1 metre long wire connected to a power box that I could tension or slacken as required and I simply dragged it along the foils to hot cut the foam and get the shape of the centreboard.

I have now coated this with a layer of fairing compound to allow me to sand it smooth (there are surface marks because I was not so good with the wire) and then I'll send it to the foundry for casting.

turnover day

Without planning it to be auspiscious ( because I don't believe in that stuff) Turnover Day ended up being on the 1st of January.

All went smoothly. I had friends come over at 11 am. Beforehand, I made cinnamon scrolls and detached the boat from the jig and got my trailer ready.

8 of us lifted it off the jig and most of the molds fell out as we were moving. We walked it down off the platform onto the grass and rolled it over gently onto two mattresses mostly missing the mattresses (lucky for the soft grass).

Then we positioned the trailer in place and as we winched, we pushed the trailer so that the boat didn't have to slide. The trailer was then backed into the shed once again and I used a laser level to set up up level.

A milestone for sure but I know I have a lot of hard work ahead of me!!

brass protective strip

The last job to do before turning the hull over was to attach the brass strips to the bottom of the hull to protect from abrasion. I bought 19mm half-oval brass strip at great expense and the cringed at the thought of putting holes in my hull to screw it on. I talked to a few people who recommended an adhesive called fixtech 190 that would be better than screws, which I believed, but I still needed some way to hold the strips down while the glue cured.
So, in the end, I bit the bullet and used screws through the brass to hold it in place and used fixtech 190 as a glue/bedding compound (it is very flexible stuff).
I wanted to have no plywood, especially end grain, exposed to the elements so i did it this way. I drilled and counter sunk all my holes in to the brass strip (400mm apart). I then used self-tapping screws to attach the strips to the boat. I removed all the screws and the strips. I then drilled 10mm holes using the hole left by the screw as a guide. these holes were went in approximately 12mm into the 16mm plywood of the sole.

 I then mixed some bote-cote epoxy with TPRDA and used a pipette to fill each hole and allowed the stuff to soak into the grain then I sucked the excess out. I then filled the hole with silica-thickened epoxy

 and before it was fully hard, cut it flush and drilled holes about 10mm deep in their centres. These were then used to attach the brass strip using silicon bronze wood screws and fixtech 190.
A tedious process but I feel secure knowing that there's no plywood exposed at all.

Painted by Christmas

When I started building, I set myself the goal of being painted by Christmas. Yesterday (Christmas eve) I put the last coat of bottom paint on so, amazingly, I made it!
Painting was a long and slow experience fraught with a few issues.
I decided that I was going to use an epoxy primer/undercoat followed by a 2-part polyurethane on the topsides and then an epoxy paint for the bottom (more on this below).
Andrew Denman of Denman marine has been a great source of information regarding paints and paint systems that hey use on the Bayraiders that they build. He told me that they use Wattyl UC230 primer/undercoat which I used. This is an excellent, high build product that is easily sanded to provide great substrate for single or two-part paints. I applied 3 coats with a short nap mohair roller and then sanded. I wasn't completely happy with the surface so I filled a few of the slightly bigger dents with epoxy fairing compound then applied another 2 coats and sanded again (with 120 grit - random orbital sander). Now I had a beautiful smooth surface - not perfect but good enough that a visitor asked if it was my finished paint job.

When I went to Wattyl I think there was a slight miscommunication. Andrew had told me that they used Poly U400 on their boats' topsides and although they sprayed it on, I would be able to roller it on, followed by tipping off with a brush much like I had been doing for years with enamels on our previous boat. I talked to the agent there and he said that could be used and also told me about Colourthane their special polyurethane formulation for marine use. He said there was no effective difference between the two but that I could get any colour made up in Colourthane and I could buy as little as one litre ( I would have to buy 5 litres in Poly U400).

I had noted that Colourthane is a 2:1 mix whilst Poly U400 is a 4:1 mix so there must be some difference in the formulation. Anyhow, I applied a coat of it using a foam roller and it pretty much instantly hardened once rollered making it impossible to tip off. I sanded off the roller stipple and tried coat number 2, this time adding more thinner (reducer) to try and retard the reaction. Again, the paint hardened almost straight away. I went to talk to the guys at Wattyl who then told me that Colourthane can't be rollered and MUST be sprayed. Only Poly U400 can be rollered!
Luckily, I have a friend who has been spray painting boats for 20 years. He offered to spray my boat but I initially declined because I wanted a more hand-done job. I called him and begged for forgiveness and he came around to give the boat a spray. I sanded off the roller stipple with 320 grit (by hand as he said that the tiny spirals from the random orbital sander would show through the paint). I was delighted with the finish that I got and should have just got him to spray it in the first place!

"Marlin Green"

I used an $80 bosch laser level to mark the waterline from the marks that I took off the moulds onto a post in the workshop. I added 7cm as recommended by Francois Vivier (2cm because he originally underestimated the boat weight + 5 cm in order to have some bottom paint showing).

For the bottom paint I used Wattyl DTM985 as recommended by Andrew Denman. This is a high-build fully immersible and incredibly tough paint that can be rollered. I got it tinted to a cream colour and will use the remainder inside the bilges and in lockers. This is applied with a short nap mohair roller and leaves a fine stipple. I did two coats past the water line then sanded it to a feather edge before taping the line and applying the topcoat. I then did one more coat of bottom paint.

I am really pleased with the results and, after fastening the brass strips will be flipping the boat over - hopefully next week sometime. It was nice to be able to just walk past and admire the boat several times today before, during and after Christmas lunch.

Here's what I cooked for lunch using all our own produce (except the salmon which was bought and the pork which was raised by my friend)

gravlax with dill sauce

roast porchetta with pink eye potatoes, beets, carrots and spinach

ready to paint

I have been very poor at keeping this blog up to date. Partly that's because all the little jobs after planking seem too insignificant to write about individually but when you list them all and then think back on the work, it seems like a lot:

- fill all screw holes where the temporary clamping blocks were for planking
- trim off the overlap between the garboards and the sole and get angry about how many times you have to sharpen planer blades as epoxy thickened with silica is just like stone!
- trim off the planks at the transom
- put epoxy fillets into the plank overlaps (paint the edge/end grain first with penetrating epoxy)
- shape and fit the outer stem. I used high strength filler (with fibres) and silicon bronze screws plus bolts on either side of the hole for the painter/winch strap
- fibreglass the sole and garboards. I used 300gsm -/+ 45o biaxial glass
- laminate, shape and fit the skeg. Just like for the stem I used swamp gum (Eucalyptus regnans) and then high strength filler and silicon bronze screws and threaded rod to attach it. This was further reinforced with 400gsm biaxial tape over epoxy fillets.
- sand everything a lot!
- coat with one coat of penetrating epoxy (bote-cote mixed with 20% TPRDA)
- wet-on-wet application of another coat of straight epoxy
- sand the whole boat with 120 grit paper to roughen the surface for applying the undercoat (I will be using Wattyl UC230 which is a high-build, epoxy primer/undercoat)
- sweep up the whole workshop to remove as much dust as possible in readiness for painting

I have learnt a lot about how epoxy behaves and how strong it is . It's amazing stuff. I think that there is little requirement for permanent fastenings in boats constructed like this so I have chosen to minimise fastenings and where I leave them in place use only silicon bronze ones. Stainless steel is probably OK but it must be exposed to air to be non-corrosive and I don't want to take the risk of rust potentially happening inside somewhere that will be very hard to access.